Clinton lost because PA, WI, and MI have high casualty rates and saw her as pro-war, study says

Last fall I winced whenever Hillary Clinton or her surrogates promised regime change in Syria. Don’t these people get it? Americans don’t want to be waging more wars in the Middle East.

Now an important new study has come out showing that Clinton paid for this arrogance: professors argue that Clinton lost the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in last year’s presidential election because they had some of the highest casualty rates during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and voters there saw Clinton as the pro-war candidate.

By contrast, her pro-war positions did not hurt her in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California, the study says; because those states were relatively unscathed by the Middle East wars.

The study is titled “Battlefield Casualties and Ballot Box Defeat: Did the Bush-Obama Wars Cost Clinton the White House?” Authors Francis Shen, associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and Dougas Kriner, a political science professor at Boston University, strike a populist note:

With so much post-election analysis, it is surprising that no one has pointed to the possibility that inequalities in wartime sacrifice might have tipped the election. Put simply:
perhaps the small slice of America that is fighting and dying for the nation’s security is tired of its political leaders ignoring this disproportionate burden.

Their study argues that there is a direct relationship between those states that gained Republican votes from Romney’s defeat in 2012 to Trump’s win in 2016 and those states that have higher casualty rates in Middle East wars.

A new study attributes Donald Trump’s victory last year to communities hit hardest by military casualties and angry about being ignored. These voters, the authors suggest, saw Trump as an “opportunity to express that anger at both political parties.”

Krayewski summarizes the data behind the conclusion:

The study… found a “significant and meaningful relationship between a community’s rate of military sacrifice and its support for Trump.” The statistical model it used suggested that if Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin had suffered “even a modestly lower casualty rate,” all three could have flipped to Hillary Clinton, making her the president. The study controlled for party identification, comparing Trump’s performance in the communities selected to Mitt Romney’s performance in 2012. It also controlled for other relevant factors, including median family income, college education, race, the percentage of a community that is rural, and even how many veterans there were.

“Even after including all of these demographic control variables, the relationship between a county’s casualty rate and Trump’s electoral performance remains positive and statistically significant,” the paper noted. “Trump significantly outperformed Romney in counties that shouldered a disproportionate share of the war burden in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

And here are the authors themselves on the moral hazard at work here. The people who decide are not suffering as much.

America has been at war continuously for over 15 years, but few Americans seem to notice. This is because the vast majority of citizens have no direct connection to those soldiers fighting, dying, and returning wounded from combat. Increasingly, a divide is emerging between communities whose young people are dying to defend the country, and those communities whose young people are not.

Here is another powerful excerpt from the paper:

Imagine a country continuously at war for nearly two decades. Imagine that the wars were supported by both Democratic and Republican presidents. Continue to imagine that the country fighting these wars relied only on a small group of citizens—a group so small that those who served in theater constituted less than 1 percent of the nation’s population, while those who died or were wounded in battle comprised far less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the nation’s population.

And finally, imagine that these soldiers, their families, friends, and neighbors felt that their sacrifice and needs had long been ignored by politicians in Washington. Would voters in these hard hit communities get angry? And would they seize an opportunity to express that anger at both political parties? We think the answer is yes.

Kriner and Shen point out that an antiwar groundswell rocked the U.S. political establishment 10 years before:

By 2006, the continuing deterioration of the situation in Iraq emboldened Democrats to promise to end the war in the Middle East. That year’s midterm elections returned Democrats to power in both chambers of Congress for the first time since before the 1994 Republican Revolution. Underlying this sweeping change was a further erosion in support for the GOP among the constituencies hardest hit by the war.

Their argument is obviously aimed at coastal elites, which have more power than rural communities over decision-making, but far less to lose. The authors are unsparing about the very different experience of war for different communities. :

When the United States goes to war, the sacrifice that war exacts in blood is far from uniformly distributed across the country. And in the Civil War, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, constituencies that have suffered the highest casualty rates have proven most likely to punish the ruling party at the polls.

In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, for example, seven states have suffered casualty rates of thirty or more deaths per million residents. By contrast, four states have suffered casualty rates of fifteen or fewer deaths per million. As a result, Americans living in these states have had different exposure to the war’s human costs through the experiences of their friends and neighbors and local media coverage.

The four states with the lowest rates are NY, NJ, CT and Utah. All but Utah voted Democratic. Overall, rural states have higher casualty rates, and the authors find pretty significant inverse correlations between state income and education medians and casualty rates. Though it must be noted that Vermont suffered the worst casualty rate– more than 41 deaths per million– and it is home to the most vociferous antiwar candidate, Bernie Sanders, but was also very safe for Clinton.

The president’s electoral fate in 2020 “may well rest on the administration’s approach to the human costs of war,” the paper suggests. “If Trump wants to maintain his connection to this part of his base, his foreign policy would do well to be highly sensitive to American combat casualties.” More broadly, the authors argue that “politicians from both parties would do well to more directly recognize and address the needs of those communities whose young women and men are making the ultimate sacrifice for the country.”

The most effective way of addressing their needs is to advance a foreign policy that does not see Washington as the world’s policeman, that treats U.S. military operations as a last resort, and that rethinks the foreign policy establishment’s expansive and often vague definition of national security interests.

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It is true the human cost of these Middle East wars is reflected in death and injury to mostly working class citizens, these loses are reflected in the up to $6 trillion dollar projected costs of these wars of choice as explained in the study by Harvard University Kennedy Law School Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes https://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/articles/bilmes-iraq-afghan-war-cost-wp Unfortunately Trump lied before he was elected when he said that the crazy expenditure of those wars could have rebuilt the infrastructure of the US twice over. Thats true, now he is doubling down on US belligerence by not only threatening North Korea and Syria but China and Russia as well. It is depressing to learn the high point so far of the Trump Presidency as far as the mainstream media is concerned is when Trump bombed that Syrian airbase contrary to International law and the UN Charter, the MSM were ecstatic.
This unlawful aggression was based on pure propaganda put about by the usual suspects, and firmly refuted by Seymour Hersh https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html. Only when the US complies with International Law will peace be given a chance.

The communities furnishing most of our combat troops are growing smaller every year; regime change politics and war-mongering foreign policy shows no sign at all of weakening no matter who’s in power in the US. Where will our troops come from in the future?

Yes, the communities of the poor and the marginalized are growing every year; NO, among those communities, only certain groups generally enlist, and they are tired of their disproportionate efforts. See the recent MW article on which state’s by counties, are overburdened, which ones underburdened by comparison.

“…the small slice of America that is fighting and dying for the nation’s security….”

The nation’s security? What rubbish! These are imperial storm troopers fighting against Third World peoples, and until we deal with that reality, little will change except for the worse. American casualties are relatively low due to the US use of massive, indiscriminate firepower to kill everything that moves. Also, the use of proxy terrorists to reduce US casualties. Perhaps US citizens should worry as much or more about all of the people the empire is killing rather than the relatively small number of US casualties in these American wars of aggression. Of course, these good professors can’t say that, can they?

I don’t disagree with your comment; your comparison is between US military deaths and target casualties of inhabitants our military executes. My comparison was related more to the imbalance of only the imperial storm troopers’ deaths and casualties among the states, and counties within them.

Not defending the indefensible, but there are casualties and then there are casualties. Add up the suicides, brain traumas, amputees, and opioid addicted. Paranoid that I am, I assume this burden was intended to tie up energies that could be focused on politics now spent on caring for your PTSD husband/son/brother and fighting with the VA.

MARC B- “Not defending the indefensible, but there are casualties and then there are casualties.”

Yes, but these casualties and costs are the costs of empire, not the price of defending the homeland. My main point is that as long as the doctrinal system can convince the populace that these costs are the price of defending the US, they will be deemed worth it. And these professors are contributing to this misrepresentation of reality. My other point is that the US citizenry needs to feel empathy towards the foreign victims of empire. Being almost exclusively concerned with American casualties de facto promotes forms of warfare which maximize foreign civilian casualties in order to minimize US losses. The massive use of US airpower against relatively defenseless Third World peoples a perfect example.

As for US casualties absorbing energy away from protest, just the opposite I would think. The whole point of the article was that the states with the higher casualties experienced increased protest at the ballot box. During the Vietnam war, the large casualties fueled protests, not the reverse.

What a crock. There is not NEARLY enough war deaths to even begin to assume they had any impact, unlike Vietnam where people you knew were killed or maimed, and your relatives got drafted. The election was so close that you can blame it on a myriad of issues. Mrs. Clinton was seen as a warmonger, and was not going to stop spending money on the wars. Mrs. Clinton lost the election because she conspired with the DNC to torpedo the Sanders campaign through underhand means… and got caught. Droves of Sanders supporters were then supposed to vote for Clinton out of some ambiguous fear of Trump. She didn’t have a message, she had tonnes of baggage, she was roundly loathed, and she had no mojo. Mrs. Clinton lost the election because Mrs. Clinton lost the election.
The narrative from the left still allows for no self examination, and the DNC needs to have a long hard look at why people out in fly-over country didn’t vote for THEM before they can ever hope to win again.

There were more reasons not to vote Clinton that you touch upon. The “donor class” of the Dems torpedoed a statement on the party platform regarding the illegal West Bank settlements, in detriment to the rank & file. My family was rank & file for generations… it was a sin to vote GOP, and the church made sure you knew. You don’t ignore the wishes of the rank & file.

And the “We came, we saw, he died” thing was beyond the pale. After Khadaffy gave up his WMDs, we still had him executed. We know from the Podesta emails it was because of Libya’s support of the BRICs nations in their efforts to replace the petro-dollar with something else (Chinese money?) So in retrospect, why should we ask the N Koreans to give up their nukes?

How could you disagree with the basic pillars of the arguments? It is a fact that Trump became a celebrity after questioning Bush wars and questioning 911 . He won the S Carolina primary known as Bush country by challenging the war . He earned wrath of the war mongers and he earned derision from other Republican candidates who felt that they could care less about the adverse effects of the war .

Lindsey Graham challenged people not to vote for him if they did not support war. Voters ;listened and delivered him the prize of becoming a non entity .

Since the election Trump has shown a different portrait of himself .

But it was stance on war and on illegal immigration that galvanized people from the heartland to vote for him
Bernie also questioned the war but that was a different issue because he was pulverized by Dem Machine which enraged enough people to vote for Trump in many states where Dem had good chance .

Minimally, at the last minute, without sincerity, as a participant in all the war crimes of the last 20 years, having voted the AUMF as well as all wars of aggression, or at least the budgets for them. And as an ongoing supporter of the Middle East wars of aggression.

Okay, I agree. The pillars of the argument are not invalid. I myself had to seriously consider Trump when he said Iraq was a mistake, and he told AIPAC “You can’t buy me”. However I voted Green because they matched my outlook. But I don’t think the authors of the study really proved their point, and I can think of 10 or so much more compelling reasons of why Trump won.

Hillary lost for lots of reasons: (1) the Establishment candidate in a nation wanting change (even from a conman like Trump).(2) Hilary email scandal (3) Hilary speeches for Goldman Sachs (4) Hillary support for NAFTA and other free trade job-killing treaties (5) Trump proved to be a stronger candidate than either Democrats or Republicans realized. (6) voters suffering Cllinton fatigue (7) Hilary hammered by Trump and Sanders (8) Hillary seen as pro-war (9) Hilary ran disjointed and inept campaign – you MUST read the recent book “Shattered:Inside the Hilary Clinton campaign”

etc. etc.

military casualties played a role, but were not the only reason, or even a major reason.

Official Washington fears a peace without victory even more than they fear a war without end.

I’m not sure it’s a crock. (I would like to believe that there are enough people in the U.S. who don’t support every war that comes along to sway an election; but I’m not sure.) But U.S. casualties, though unevenly distributed, are small – certainly compared to the casualties we inflict on other people.
And likely to get smaller, as we increase the use of drones.

“So I wish you well, Sarge, give ’em hell,
Kill me a thousand or so,
And when they invent a war without blood and gore
I’ll be the first to go.”

That’s Phil Ochs, in the Draft Dodger’s Rag, writing in the 60s. We just may have invented a war without blood and gore – at least, American blood and gore.

Yes, I agree with you. I suppose the point I was trying to make is you can pick any of a hundred different reasons people didn’t vote Clinton, back them up with statistics, and they are all just as valid, and probably more so. My impression on this study is the data is almost invalid due to the puny size of the war deaths. Seem like another study somebody does to validate their own opinions that simply can’t find the trees in the forest.

I think you need to factor in suicide deaths. At an average of 22 a day that number is not small. This is completely understandable. When you send normal people to go kill other normal (albeit different) people you have to expect a significant number will be unable to live with the crimes they’ve committed. I always watch Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” on the the 4th to remind myself of how deep the wound of war can be even to those who are not wounded. I think Ron Kovic contemplated suicide but in the end became a force for good. The same can be said of other courageous veterans such as Chelsea Manning. But there are many more who I suppose cannot cope with the guilt of having been involved in the slaughter of innocent men, women and children and cope with it by taking their own lives….

It’s clear that there are a number of contributing factors that led to HRC’s loss in the election, and I would agree with these professors and Phil Weiss that anti-war feeling, if not higher casualty rates in Pa., Wisc. and Mi., is among them. I do not include Russian meddling or hacking among the factors. I think that a much more compelling argument for a major contributing factor can be found in the rant by Uncle Chang, prompted by the freak Shia LaBeouf’s “art installation” camera in NYC, right around the corner from Phil! Now I know that such a cogent argument (from a Chinese American) that is diametrically opposed to Phil’s worldview would escape his attention, but it should be examined and considered. Here is the opening.

“This is a message to you, the neoliberals, the SJWs, the blue pills, the antifa, whatever you want to call yourselves. This is why you lost, part 2. You lost because you told the poor, white working families in rural Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that despite losing their jobs, despite their factories closing down and their communities emptying out, that they were the privileged ones, because of their skin color. That they benefit from white privilege. You guys are the privileged ones. You guys are so f****** out of touch. You’re sitting in your big, comfy chairs in your large office spaces in the ivory towers of university sociology departments, and you actually think that we working class people give two sh*** and a f*** about your identity politics. You think we care about intersectional trans-feminism when – look, I come from a working class family, alright, and the struggle doesn’t discriminate. The struggle is the same. Our parents work their hands off to provide a better future for us so that we don’t have to struggle. And when their jobs left, that dream left with them. And you think we care about identity politics, when the first thing that pops into our minds when we wake up is whether or not we’re going to make the rent this month, whether or not we have money for food in our budget, or whether or not our bronze tier Obamacare plan covers little Brittney’s weird cough. Brittney is sick, so sick. We don’t know what’s wrong with her; it might be because we don’t have enough money, we can only afford to feed her cold chicken tenders. And yet you guys are the real racist ones, but you’ve redefined the word racism to mean power, privilege, and prejudice. You’ve twisted the definition so that we can’t use the word against you, but you can use it against us and against anybody who disagrees with you, because under this new definition, all white people are racists, all people who defend white people are either racists themselves or self-hating Uncle Toms or Uncle Changs. You call people who disagree with you racist, sexist, Nazis. You don’t listen to us when we try to tell you why we believe what we believe. You’ve demonized us and dehumanized us, so in your mind it’s okay to punch us, because what’s more American than punching a Nazi! ”

This argument is crap from A to Z. Since 2001 there have been exactly 6867 deaths of US soldiers in conflict situations,in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, including non-battle deaths. How many were in Pa., Wis., and Michigan? Maybe 750, at most? Trump carried Pa. by 44,292 votes, Wisc. by 22,748 votes, and Michigan by 10,704 votes. Assuming that the deaths had the effect the authors claim- without producing any evidence that it did- it is obvious that the war deaths could have had only a microscopic effect on the outcome. Probably there were more war deaths in California than in any other state, but Clinton carried Cal. by four million votes. How do the two clowns who wrote the article explain that? Of course they are not clowns- they are left-wing propagandists, and Mondoweiss is one of the few sites where they could publish.

We had two lousy choices. Trump is also a disaster, and taking this country backwards, and into the arms of Russia. The G20 meeting fiasco, sent a strong signal to the world, that Trump does not want to join the international community, but become isolated, and with no strong allies to support us. It is a sad situation. Hillary was a flawed candidate, and I do not agree with many of her policies, especially when it comes to Israel, but she would at least have hit the ground running, would have had the experience, to lead the nation, and there would not have been conflicts of interests with numerous private businesses, nepotism, and twitter tirades, that we have to deal with on a daily basis.

Did you get news that the blood-sucking Clinton Harpy is preparing a comeback? Perhaps by finally staging a takeover?
Is that why this totally gratuitous propaganda note is being slipped in, to the rescue of the Party?

There is no doubt she would already have started the new world war, to gladden the hearts of all red-blooded Democrats and its new supporters the Neocons, the CIA, and the rest of the alphabet.

Now, can we please finally hear what, exactly and demonstrably, is wrong with Russia?

“Now, can we please finally hear what, exactly and demonstrably, is wrong with Russia?”

1. Winter in Russia is damned cold.
2. The people talk funny.
3. They write with marks that look like letters but aren’t real letters.
4. They are more cheerful than they ought to be.
5. The winters are absolutely brutal.

“RoHa”, don’t let these people talk bad about Russia. 70 years of Communist rule, WW2, the arms race, the planned economy, and then the collapse of Communism into anarchy has left Russia in fine shape, financially, politically environmentally, technically.

MOOSER- ““RoHa”, don’t let these people talk bad about Russia. 70 years of Communist rule, WW2, the arms race, the planned economy, and then the collapse of Communism into anarchy has left Russia in fine shape, financially, politically environmentally, technically.”

KAY24- “… and taking this country backwards, and into the arms of Russia.”

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! A quote for you, for what it is worth.

“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” (Herman Goering)

Very appropriate, but to a Dim fan(atic) one perhaps should additionally explain that Goebbels says what their own party is doing.

The Dims have been behaving very much like the Zionists during the last year: letters to the editor and feature articles flooding all sites at the same time, and hundreds of comment writers hitting on the same idea together and sending them in regardless of relevance to the topic. A full article by the usual One Cole just appeared with exactly the same content, and good number of comments on divers other sites today read like clones.

MOOSER- “And just imagine the relief of Europe as the risk of a Russian vs. America nuclear war recedes….”

The risk of nuclear war is receding? Why wasn’t I informed? Between imperial warmongering and the likely use of force caused by the chaos resulting from runaway global warming in the very near future, best to party hearty while you can!

The Russians have already come, and there is bunch of oligarchs living in Trump towers. They have also interfered in our US elections, and hacked into our systems. Today Donald Trump junior admitted he met with a Kremlin connected Lawyer, at Trump towers, two days after his father won the nomination, together with Manafort and Jared Kushner, who seems to have a memory problem. No one can call it fake news anymore, since they are admitting to these meetings, and the numerous phone calls, which again seems to cause amnesia to Trump’s people, including the Attorney General. If this was a joke, there would be no investigations, no Robert Muller, and the Senate Intelligence committee will not be holding investigations. 17 US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia has interfered in the US, and no amount of denying, or quoting Goering, can dispute the facts. So many (undisputed) connections, cannot just be a coincidence.

KAY24- “17 US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia has interfered in the US, and no amount of denying, or quoting Goering, can dispute the facts.”

No they didn’t. Only 4 of the 17 concluded on the basis of no evidence that the DNC was hacked. No government agency examined the DNC system, relying instead on a report from a DNC affiliated private contractor. These are the same people who claimed that Saddam Hussein was buying yellow cake from wherever. Amazingly, you actually believe this propaganda. Heaven only knows what your extreme loyalty to the Dems will get you.

As for interference, how many nations does the US have to destabilize before you acknowledge that the empire is the worlds biggest interferer in other’s affairs by far. Remember Stuxnet, the US/Israeli computer virus which shut down Iran’s nuclear centrifuges? The US has interfered in Russian politics quite extensively, particularly during the Yeltsin era. Its easy to believe what is convenient to believe, and you clearly want to believe the anti-Russian propaganda. I once again link to the Abby Martin interview of Mark Ames on the Yeltsin years. https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/abby-martin-russias-transformation-from-an-american-colony-to-its-number-one-threat/

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Thursday that only “three or four” of the United States’ 17 intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election — a statement that while technically accurate, is misleading and suggests widespread dissent among American intelligence agencies when none has emerged.

The “three or four” agencies referred to by Mr. Trump are the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the F.B.I. and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, all of which determined that Russia interfered in the election. Their work was compiled into a report, and a declassified version was released on Jan. 6 by the director of national intelligence. It said that all four agencies had “high confidence” that Russian spies had tried to interfere in the election on the orders of President Vladimir V. Putin.

The reason the views of only those four intelligence agencies, not all 17, were included in the assessment is simple: They were the ones tracking and analyzing the Russian campaign. The rest were doing other work.

The intelligence community is a sprawling enterprise that includes military officers who track enemy troop movements, accountants who analyze the finances of Islamist militants and engineers who design spy satellites. There are soldiers, sailors and Marines; tens of thousands of civilian government employees and tens of thousands of private contractors.
The New York Times

The New York Times has finally admitted that one of the favorite Russia-gate canards – that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred on the assessment of Russian hacking of Democratic emails – is false .

Among the most oft-repeated claims of the entire Russia election hacking scandal is that of absolute unanimity among US intelligence agencies, with media and politicians regularly claiming that “all 17 US intelligence agencies have agreed that Russia tried to influence the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump.” It’s not true.

Nearly a year into the hacking scandal, both the New York Times and the Associated Press are finally copping to the fact that this allegation is untrue, and retracting it outright. The AP confirmed falsely making the claim in at least four distinct articles, most recently on Thursday.

echinococcus: No proof and not even any probable cause shown, except the word of the gallows bait criminal Harpy and her Neocons and CIANSAFBIetc.

———————-

True, not a speck of proof of Russian government-directed hacking was ever presented. (But that proof may exist, somewhere, in classified documents, locked up forever.) [note comma usage.]

Nevertheless, the January 6, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did contain some extraordinarily damning information about nefarious Russian media efforts to undermine U.S. democracy, in particular the relentless propaganda campaign carried out by RT News.

I quote verbatim from that report:

————————————-

In an effort to highlight the alleged “lack of democracy” in the United States, RT broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a “sham.”

* * *

RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against “the ruling class” and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations. RT advertising for the documentary featured Occupy movement calls to “take back” the government.

* * *

“RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a “surveillance state” and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use (RT, 24, 28 October, 1-10 November).

* * *
RT has also focused on criticism of the US economic system, US currency policy, alleged Wall Street greed, and the US national debt. Some of RT’s hosts have compared the United States to Imperial Rome and have predicted that government corruption and “corporate greed” will lead to US financial collapse (RT, 31 October, 4 November). ”

RT is a leading media voice opposing Western intervention in the Syrian conflict and blaming the West for waging “information wars” against the Syrian Government (RT, 10 October-9 November).

———————————————————

Those are serious allegations! With RT news flooding America with such pernicious propaganda, no wonder KAY 24, Mooser et al. are up in arms about Russian “interference” and are rallying in support of the U.S. intelligence community, the great defenders of freedom and democracy around the world!

KAY24- “The “three or four” agencies referred to by Mr. Trump are the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the F.B.I. and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, all of which determined that Russia interfered in the election. “

Yes, and if you can’t trust the CIA and NYT, who can you trust? Apparently, they have no evidence of Netanyahu and Israel interfering in our elections because, if they did, we would sure hear about it! By the way, you never did answer as where you got that list of Russian warmongering. I am curious to know who has credibility with you. Seriously. No need for unnamed sources.

That the quotes you list are considered serious threats to “our democracy,” is an indication of the current sorry state of “our democracy,” and of the intelligence of those who buy into this BS. Faithful followers follow faithfully, their unquestioning loyalty their most saleable commodity.

KAY24- “You should do some research before parroting Trump’s idiotic claims:”

This is an incredibly dishonest statement. The very notion that my opinions are based upon anything Trump claims (in this case correctly) is absurd. Trump is a jerk and a liar, like virtually all of our presidents, but without the personal attractiveness of the odious Obama. And the inference that your recent comments are the product of intelligent “research” is ludicrous.

MOOSER- “I don’t know about you fellows, but where I am it’s Tuesday, July 11th. Seen the news today?”

Does anyone doubt the objectivity of the MSM? That being the case, Mondoweiss is clearly in the wrong concerning Israel and the Middle East. If you put your complete faith in the NYT, et al concerning Russia, best to be consistent and follow the party line on Israel and the Palestinians. Shape up, Phil. Or has Putin seduced you too?

Mooser, for what it is worth (you and Kay24, who would have thought?) here is a recent comment by Stephen Cohen:

“Can we be clear? What he’s being accused of is treason. This has never happened before in America, that there is a Russia agent in the White House. And we have a whole array of allegations from Putin helped him get in the White House, to his associates are doing wrong things with Russians.”

“There is no evidence there was any wrongdoing, and indeed Flynn should have talked to the Russian ambassador. That was his job. This is beyond belief now… This has become a national security threat to us in and of itself,”he explained.

SIBIRIAK- “Cohen had a pretty good line about the recent Trump-Putin meeting:”

One good quote deserves another. Clear thinking John Pilger:

“Understanding and deconstructing state and cultural propaganda is our most critical task. We are being frog-marched into a second cold war, whose eventual aim is to subdue and balkanise Russia and intimidate China.

When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke privately for more than two hours at the G20 meeting in Hamburg, apparently about the need not to go to war with each other, the most vociferous objectors were those who have commandeered liberalism, such as the Zionist political writer of the Guardian.

The only consolation I have for being American is of course the zeal of our many redundant spy agencies, who fight to the death for the freedom of the press and so protect us from any contact with the big, bad facts. They ensure that we get our izvestia free of pravda and they aren’t afraid, as you just showed, of exposing their program openly, in so many words.

We shouldn’t be wronging Kay, either. All she is doing is spreading the Word, for own good.

SIBIRIAK- “Tsar Putin, of course, is right up there in the pantheon of anti-Jewish demons, being the evil offspring his Tsar/Soviet progenitors.”

An extreme example of this insanity appeared in the letters to the editor section of today’s (7/12) Seattle Times. Permit me to quote a few choice statements.

Imagine if, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt said, “Nobody knows for sure whether it was the Japanese. It could have been one of several countries.”
….
Wittingly or not, President Donald Trump is the agent of the Russian state and Russian President Vladimir Putin. As has been made exceedingly clear after their meeting, Trump has no intention to defend this country, our allies, or the ideals and principles of freedom and democracy that all real Americans hold dear….” (Dan Salins)

This represents orchestrated McCarthyism on steroids. Previously, the Times refused to print my letter to the editor noting that Russian influence in American politics was miniscule compared to Israel’s. And to think that is “liberal” Democrats doing this! It is hard to believe, yet very revealing, that this Kafkaesque mangling of reality has actually gotten some traction. Actually, there are critically important lessons for those trying to understand political economy. Yet one more reason to believe that we are doomed.

” …today’s (7/12) Seattle Times…/…Previously, the Times refused to print my letter… Actually, there are critically important lessons for those trying to understand political economy. Yet one more reason to believe that we are doomed…”

“Keith” they have some pretty good water-processed decaf these days. You might try some.

That’s the one. America’s bestest ever ally. The ally that doesn’t actually do anything to help the US in war or peace, and yet the only one the US doesn’t crap all over. The one for whom the US has fought wars even more destructive of civilization than your misuse of commas.

And when you talk of the dark side of Russia, how about spelling out how many wars Russia has foisted on the world during the last thirty years? How many governments has Russia tried to overthrow? How many military bases does Russia have scattered about the world?

Set up a comparison table between the evils committed by Russia, and the evils committed by the USA, and see who comes out top.

That list is effectively enlightening; I’m not joking. It reads as the list of (mostly) US-instigated and (all) US-supported interventions to continue the destruction of the Soviets and dismember Russia, too.

Many of them, by the way, are obscure to the general public because this is obviously a list kept up to date by the aggressors themselves, most of them leading your Democrat party, the rest the other criminal party. The last two items are such blazing lies that not a single person in the world can believe them. Continue working for war of aggression.

Interesting list. How did you come about it? How familiar are you with any of these incidents, or are you just regurgitating MSM and Wikipedia?

I am unfamiliar with many of these incidents, however, those which I am familiar with – the Ukraine and Georgia – can hardly be described as examples of Russian aggression. To include the Ukraine as an example of Russian aggression after the US sponsored a coup resulting in Russophobic neo-Nazis coming to power is either gross ignorance or propaganda. The eastward expansion of NATO and the use of color revolutions to destabilize and replace governments with pro-West, anti-Russia ones is an example of US aggression, not Russian interference. In Georgia, there was a “rose” revolution which eventually brought US favorite Mikheil Saakashvili to power. Saakashvili visited the US on a State Department Fellowship, and received his LLD from Columbia. He was/is one of ours. As for the basic facts, I quote Noam Chomsky:

“The basic facts are not seriously in dispute. South Ossetia, along with the much more significant region of Abkhazia, were assigned by Stalin to his native Georgia. Western leaders sternly admonish that Stalin’s directives must be respected, despite the strong opposition of Ossetians and Abkhazians. The provinces enjoyed relative autonomy until the collapse of the USSR. In 1990, Georgia’s ultranationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia abolished autonomous regions and invaded South Ossetia. The bitter war that followed left 1000 dead and tens of thousands of refugees, with the capital city of Tskhinvali “battered and depopulated” (New York Times).

A small Russian force then supervised an uneasy truce, broken decisively on August 7, 2008, when Georgian president Saakashvili’s ordered his forces to invade. According to “an extensive set of witnesses,” the Times reports, Georgia’s military at once “began pounding civilian sections of the city of Tskhinvali, as well as a Russian peacekeeping base there, with heavy barrages of rocket and artillery fire.” The predictable Russian response drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, and Russia went on to conquer parts of Georgia, then partially withdrawing to the vicinity of South Ossetia. There were many casualties and atrocities. As is normal, the innocent suffered severely.” (Noam Chomsky) https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/11/towards-a-second-cold-war/

Mooser, I did watch that presentation by Richard Engel on Rachel Maddow, and it was very interesting. The signs are not good, even frightening to a large extent. Trump is being used as a tool by Putin. If Putin wanted to bring the US down, and interfere in it’s sovereignty, this is the easier way. Trump has a lot of dirt and has been lying from day one.
It is amusing to see Putin’s pests keep defending the Kremlin, and trying to convince everyone here that nothing is wrong with Russia. 17 Intelligence agencies and numerous investigations show that this is a serious crime/s and this is an unprecedented situation in the history of this nation, and it will be interesting to see what Robert Muller and other officials investigating these endless Trump connections (which may also reveal money laundering) to an enemy nation.

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